Adding to CEDARE's efforts in lobbying for a national transition to a green economy and adopting a sustainable development directive, the SwitchMed project focuses on sustainable consumption and production.

The EC funded multi‐component SWITCH‐Med programme assists the 10 ENPI South target countries of the southern Mediterranean to develop and implement policies to SWITCH to sustainable pattern of consumption and production (SCP) promoting it among consumers, small and medium‐sized enterprises and Mediterranean policy‐makers. Egypt is one of the countries d by the project and towards this end, an SSFA agreement was signed by UNEP and CEDARE in June 2014. The main aim of the cooperation within the context of SwitchMed is to design an action plan to introduce SCP in four main sectors based on CEDARE’s ‘Green Economy Scoping Study for Egypt’ launched in cooperation with UNEP. The focus is on 4 sectors, including: Agriculture, Energy, Waste and Water.

On the 15th of December the Centre for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE) in Cooperation with the Ministry of Environment and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) hosted the participants from different Ministries & working groups, who actively and collectively developed the action plan as part of implementing Egypt’s Green Economy Strategy.

As mandated by the EC-UNEP SWITCHMED Project, designing a national action plan for Sustainable Consumption & Production (SCP) has been put into action. The EEAA and CEDARE held the first round of the working group meetings addressing the four main national strategic priority sectors: the solid waste working group meeting on May 31st, the energy working group meeting on June 21st, the water working group on June 24th, & the agriculture working group on July 5th, 2015 at the Environmental Cultural and Educational Center.

The workshop was held under the auspices of the Egyptian Ministry of Environment on the 5th of March, 2015, during the deliberations of the 15th African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) which in turn was held starting 2nd till the 6th of March and hosted by Egypt in DusitThani Lakeview, Cairo.

The objective of the workshop was to unveil the process of developing and drafting the Sustainable Consumption and Production (SGP) National Action Plan for Egypt and highlight potential opportunities and challenges for promoting SGP policies in the targeted four sectors; Agriculture, Water, Energy and Municipal Solid Waste.